Experts: North Korea May Be Developing a Dirty Bomb Drone

A Korean think tank claims that North Korea is developing a drone capable of spreading lethal amounts of radioactivity over a wide area, sickening people and making areas unlivable. If true, the weapon is the latest in a series of nuclear or radiological weapons being developed by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's regime.

According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, Kim Jong-un may have begun to develop the drone in 2012, shortly after the death of his father Kim Il-sung. The Banghyun-5 drone, as it is supposedly called, is made of titanium and carbon composites and has a 900-liter fuel tank, allowing it to fly for up to 10 hours. The drone is designed to carry a payload of enriched uranium, which North Korea is believed to possess as a result of its nuclear weapons program.

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Also known as a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD), a dirty bomb is not to be confused with a nuclear weapon. Instead, it uses conventional explosives such as TNT or dynamite to spread radioactive material over a wide area. The more powerful the explosive, the wider the contaminated area. Other dispersal means include aerosol sprays and crop-dusting planes.

A wide variety of radioactive isotopes are candidates for dirty bombs, including Americium-241, Californium-252, Cesium-137, Cobalt-60, Plutonium-238, and Strontium-90. Dirty bombs rarely have enough radioactive material to kill. Prolonged exposure may cause radiation sickness and elevate a person's long term chances of developing cancer but are not instantly lethal. They mostly create fear and panic due to public perceptions of radiation dangers.

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Another byproduct of an RDD attack is seeding an area with radioactive fallout, making it dangerously uninhabitable—but easily avoided. The half life of some isotopes is in the hundreds of years, making an expensive and tedious cleanup necessary.

Now, this report should be taken with a grain of salt. Such a program would be a closely held state secret in North Korea, a notoriously inaccessible country. Titanium and carbon composites are also hard to manufacture. On the other hand, North Korea is known to have a great deal of interest in drones, and has repeatedly flown them over South Korea. Several drones have crashed in South Korea, including drones with photographs of the capital, Seoul, and the Blue House, the official residence of the South Korean president.

A radiological dispersal device drone would be an ideal weapon for North Korea's provocative attacks. The country's leadership periodically orders provocations—such as shelling an inhabited island with artillery or starting a gun battle at sea—in order to appear unstable. Attacking a South Korean park, building, or landmark (such as the Blue House) with the drone probably wouldn't trigger a war with Seoul but certainly would grab the attention of the international community.